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New year revellers should worry now

Some celebrate by attending midnight church services while some people want to just spend their day with their families. Many people hold parties to farewell the finishing year and to celebrate the New Year. The size of festive events for New Year’s Eve can vary in size and theme. So without giving a single thought people arrange New Year parties where drugs and alcohol is a common sight. That’s what they are supposed to do, right?

People think drinking occasionally or for the first time will not do any bad to their health. Only daily heavy drinkers should be worried of bad health problems. But now it is proved in a research study that people who drink even for the first time should be worried as one time drinking can also be disruptive in their immune system and potentially lead to problems, said the lead author, Dr. Majid Afshar, a pulmonologist, critical care physician and epidemiologist at Loyola.

Dr. Afshar did a research on this issue at the University of Maryland where he completed a fellowship before joining Loyola. The findings of the research were published in the journal Alcohol. A total of fifteen volunteers were chosen which included eight women and seven men for this scientific research. The average age of the group was twenty seven. They were all asked to gulp enough vodka and seltzer cocktails, generally four to five drinks each, containing one part of vodka and four parts of seltzer, as much so that they can be drunk excessively.

Blood samples of all the volunteers were taken at an interval of twenty minutes, two hours and five hours. Blood samples that were taken within twenty minutes showed higher level of white blood cells, leukocytes, monocytes and natural killer cells. The researcher also found increased amount of proteins called cytokines that signal immune system to work harder. But the blood samples that were taken at an interval of two hours showed completely opposite effect. It showed fewer circulating monocytes and natural killer cells and higher levels of different types of cytokines that signal the immune system to become less active.

The research was sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and by the University of Maryland. Another study showed the average age of American boy to have his first drink is just 11 years while that of girl is 13. Underage drinking has become a common phenomenon as today’s kids are well equipped with every sort of thing through the internet.

People should actually work to cut back their drinking habits and the people who started drinking recently should not be eager to try everything in life and they should keep themselves away from these bad habits as it will not bring them any good.